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Recover. Faster.

17 May 2016

Fred Wilson wrote a great post on feeling tired out. As much as we celebrate going 100 miles per hour in our industry, we can only do so much.

I am tired. My travels in 2016 are shown in the App in the Air graphic below, including the trip to Slush last week. I have averaged almost 3 trips a month since February, around 1 trip a week. International flights don't include the Shenzhen trips I make either.

I believe the key is to recover faster. When I was training for my triathlon last year, I realized that one way to quickly strengthen physical capabilities is to reduce the time between tough training sessions. Top athletes reduce recovery time and accelerate recovery by taking cold showers or ice baths, ingesting protein bars, sleeping more, or wearing compression gear.

The same principle holds for work recovery. Some things that have worked for me include:

Spending time with family (focus the mind on more pressing inputs)

Stop the number of work inputs completely

Waking up later (disrupt the concept of time)

Removing my watch (disrupt the concept of time too)

Watching films and read (totally new and creative inputs)

Exercising (force the body and mind to concentrate on something else)

Writing long form (get thoughts out of mind)

I'm doing the above for today and tomorrow. I think entrepreneurs who are attune to their physical readiness and know when to recalibrate is a strong sign of awareness - a trait I like.